The present invention relates to a stamp scanning and dispensing means and method, and, more specifically, to a means and method for scanning stamps on a roll or strip of postage stamps and for controlling the dispensing thereof so that a blank stamp is not vended to a customer as a valid stamp.
Numerous devices are known and have been employed for many years now for dispensing postage stamps, particularly for dispensing postage stamps from stamp rolls. Such devices range from simple, mechanically operated devices that dispense a single stamp upon the deposit of a coin in the exact amount of such stamp to complex electronic control systems, including systems such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,792, the constructions in which patent were developed to control the vending of postage stamps by both selection and quantity when appropriate credit has been entered by a customer. All of the known dispensing devices, depending upon their particular designs and constructions, the selection made by the customer, and the amount of money deposited, operate to vend to the customer an appropriate number of stamps from the end of the stamp roll or strip. In the unfortunate event that one or more stamps on the roll or strip are blank for some reason, such as due to misprinting, a customer may be vended a worthless bit of paper. Although such problem is undoubtedly annoying and aggravating to the customer who has received the blank stamp, it has generally been considered only a minor problem when the authority issuing or providing the rolls or strips of stamps has maintained good quality control of its printing operations. However, the problem becomes more severe as quality control standards are relaxed, and is a monumental problem if the issuing authority regularly provides rolls or strips of stamps, either by chance, accident, or design, with blank stamps interposed among the valid stamps on a roll or strip.
It should be appreciated that in some countries postage stamps are not routinely available in individual roll or strip form. In some of such countries postage stamps may be printed only on block rolls wherein a 10.times.10 block of stamps on the roll is separated from a succeeding 10.times.10 block of stamps by a single column of blank stamps between the two stamp blocks. The block roll is typically cut into block lengths by appropriate cutting means that cut the block roll at the locations of the columns of blank stamps that separate two blocks of valid stamps from one another, and the stamps are then made available to the public in such block form. Because of the particular machinery set-up and printing techniques employed by such issuing authorities, and/or the high cost of acquiring new machinery or of modifying existing equipment to provide for the printing of continuous runs of valid stamps suitable for slitting into individual stamp rolls, such authorities do not anticipate or envision making individual stamp rolls of continuous stamp runs available to the public in the immediate future. It is recognized that in such instances a form of individual stamp rolls could be relatively easily obtained from the block rolls by slitting the block rolls lengthwise along the perforations between rows of stamps and by cutting the rolls at a suitable point to provide an appropriate number of stamps on the individual stamp rolls. The resulting individual stamp rolls would have blank stamps disposed periodically among the non-blank stamps, however, as a result of which known stamp dispensing constructions could not be advantageously employed to vend such stamps.
Even where individual stamp rolls of high quality, which contain no blank stamps interposed thereon among valid stamps, are provided by an issuing authority, dispensing problems may arise if the sizes of the stamps on a particular roll are not uniform or if stamp sizes vary from roll to roll, such as might be the case if differently valued stamps are differently sized. In such instances, dispensing problems would be encountered because many of the known stamp dispensing constructions employ a stamp drive means that includes a drive roller with spaced sets of upstanding sprockets thereon for engaging the perforations between adjacent stamps and for advancing the stamps as the wheel turns, with the spacings between the sets of sprockets having been selected to correspond to the size of the stamps to be vended. Such drive means works well with the particular sized stamps that the sprocket spacing is designed for, but will not work properly if a differently sized stamp is provided since the spacing between the perforations on the stamp roll containing the differently sized stamps will no longer be the same. Consequently, constructions that include such a sprocket drive means are generally restricted to one specific size of stamp for vending.